Lark Books announces it will close Asheville offices and move work to owner Sterling Publishing’s NY base

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Email below. The move to close Lark Books in Asheville ends a long and storied history for the book publisher in town. A little background on Lark Books here and here.

From: Caitlin Friedman
Date: Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 10:34 AM
Subject: Lark Books Update
To: Caitlin Friedman <CFriedman@sterlingpublishing.com>

To Our Authors, Agents and Creative Professionals:

I wanted to reach out to you personally to share some important and exciting news about Lark Books.

This morning we announced that Sterling Publishing plans to consolidate its Lark Books operations into the New York City Office, effective May 2, 2014. Over the next 60 days, we will close the Lark offices in Asheville, N.C. and transition the current list to the New York-based publishing team.

We know you may have concerns about this transition, but I can assure you that we remain dedicated to our craft publishing program. Our team of editors in New York is a strong group of professionals who have spearheaded books for a wide range of organizations and individuals, including Hearst Media, the American Museum of Natural History, Terry Walters and Kevin Zraly, to name just a few. We also have a superb team of talented and creative art directors who will be instrumental in bringing your books to market, as well as a high-impact marketing team that will oversee all aspects of book launches, including building the profiles of our authors and creating awareness through events, advertising and media outreach.

We are energized and excited about the future of the Lark imprint in New York. We also recognize the hard work, vision, passion and dedication of the Asheville team and want to take this opportunity to thank them all for their many years of service.

As the Editorial Director for Lark, I am your partner in this transition process, so please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Best,

Caitlin Friedman

Caitlin Friedman

Director, Marketing & Publicity

Editorial Director, Lark Books
Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble

4 Comments

Ron Brown May 18, 2014 - 9:47 pm

Sad indeed. The examples cited above, Making Books ThT Fly – WOW- very impressive – so this is truly a great loss both to that community and publishing. Having lost out in a corporate takeover myself, those who left early made the best decision. Thanks for all your good work of the past!

Brandon Belt February 24, 2014 - 1:48 pm

The original B&N press release said that “fewer than twenty” jobs would be moved to the New York office, but that is a way of cleverly saying “zero.” Everyone is getting the axe. Only B&N and Sterling could present the layoff of twenty or more people as “important and exciting news” about Lark Books! When Lark was an independent publisher, they created some of the most interesting and compelling niche books around (take a look at “Making Books That Fly” if you’re really interested). Since Sterling bought them, however, they’ve never quite known what to do with Lark, and so there has been a steady dilution of talent as competent people have left to get away from that dysfunction. People may not realize that this is the fourth or fifth round of layoffs at Lark Books….Sterling is finally pulling the plug, and that is certainly news, but they killed the creative spirit at Lark many years ago.

Leigh-Ann February 21, 2014 - 10:22 am

So much writing and publishing talent in this town with very few sustainable job offerings. Wish we could pool our talents into something awesome.

Chris Power February 20, 2014 - 2:59 pm

It will be sad to see Lark leave Asheville. What will happen to their Asheville staff? Moving too? Thanking them for their “many years of service” leads me to believe otherwise…

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